Gainward GeForce 6600GT Ultra 1960PCX XP Golden Sample GLH

Gainward wins the title for having the longest product name, although weâ€™ll stick to Ultra 1960PCX from here on in. The card comes in traditional Gainward red with a fairly standard heatsink over the GPU as well as small memory heatsinks, also in red. The cooler fan is backlit by three red LEDs and the bracket is gold coloured for that extra â€˜blingâ€™ effect.

The Ultra 1960PCX distinguishes itself from all of the cards by having dual DVI as well as ViVo functionality. For those still using analogue displays Gainward supplies two {nolossary:DVI} to D-SUB adapters. A ViVo cable is also included that gives a wide range of connectivity options. Starting with the output options the Ultra 1960PCX offer Component, Composite and S-Video and it also has Composite and S-Video input.

You donâ€™t get a lot of software with the Ultra 1960PCX as Gainward only supplies a driver CD, WinDVD 5 and muvee autoProducer 3. The manual is pretty generic, but it provides installation information as well as some basic driver setup notes. No games are included and if this had been done to keep the price down I could have understood the reasoning behind it. This however, is not the case as the card will set you back Â£179.72 - a lot more than the other cards on test.

Gainward is known for making overclockable cards and for anyone interested in pushing their graphics card to the limit, Gainward tends to come up trumps. The 1.6ns memory used should allow for a decent memory overclock but at stock speeds the Ultra 1960PCX doesnâ€™t excel in any way compared to the competition.

Overall, the Gainward package is expensive for what you get, but it is the only card on test that offers video input and dual DVI, so if this is a feature you would like then there no competition. Itâ€™s just a shame that Gainward charges such a premium.